MH-230 cLOUDDEAD - TenTen finds cLOUDDEAD building on all of the elements that defined their debut: razor sharp vocal interplay, quirky found sound samples, ambient drone dreamscapes, lyrics that walk the line between observational and confessional, and a fair share of nosdam drums slowed to a growl. Doseone and why? never take the cheap way out. Their lyrics may range from blurry and buried to sharp and surfaced, but each and every line has meaning. The music and production are collaborative, featuring Doseone's knack for bottling emotion, why's self-taught multi-instrumentalist efforts, and odd nosdam's flair for borrowed genius. Individually, Doseone, why? and odd nosdam are as prolific and fearless as anyone in today's new music scene, but together as cLOUDDEAD they are able to create music that captures all of the promise of their individual talents in an unequaled sound.

It's been quite a while, but the forefathers of this new fangled whiny white boy avant hip-hop movement, Doseone, why? and odd nosdam all finally reconvene and resurrect their slumbering supergroup cLOUDDEAD. Hot on the heels of a cover story in British magazine The Wire, comes Ten, a record the band claims may just be their last. A bold statement from a band/collective that seem to release a record every week or so. The strange thing about cLOUDDEAD is that they showed up all fresh faced, white boys into hip-hop struggling to be taken seriously in the hip-hop world, but as they progress, and with each successive record, the hip-hop element becomes less and less an integral part of their sound. Which is a little disappointing, since instead of taking hip-hop and reinventing it as folks claim they are doing, they basically become more and more like a weird experimental electronic pop band that digs and borrows a little bit from hip-hop. Which on second thought is perfectly fine. In fact, it makes it easier to just enjoy cLOUDDEAD as a great band without all the are they hip-hop? are they not hip-hop? bullshit debates. So what does this record sound like, you ask? Well, the first track is definitely classic cLOUDDEAD, throbbing calliopes pulse over a shuffling hip-hop beat with loopy stream of consciousness lyrics delivered in whiny falsettos. But after that the hip-hop element is subsumed by grand Sgt. Peppery pop, glitchy ambient electronica, and skittery, electro pop with dreamy harmonies and warm ambient hum. The sound overall is closer to stuff like the Notwist or the Postal Service and all that poppy electronica, albeit with some of Doseone's bizarre nasal rapping tossed in here and there. This is just a really amazing and amazingly produced multi-layered pop record! So don't dive into this expecting to jam this in your boomin' system, but definitely dive in. - Aquarius